Minimizing your reoccurring costs is always a primary goal at the onset of any new design. Attempts to lower costs after a product is in production results in only half measures of what could have been achieved during initial design. One cannot typically make the necessary design changes to the enclosure because it would effect so many other things. One may need to make changes to PC board design, existing component inventories, etc., to get to the most meaningful costs cuts. If the engineer or designer does not know the difference between a shaker part and a reshear part or when to use half-shears vs. Clecos. Or if he/she doesn’t know when to design for and use MUD or the difference between lifters and pecker-pins, or blade, sleeve, two stage, three plate, etc., then the engineer is designing on the hope everything will come out OK. Without fully understanding these differences, he or she willinvariably design in features that willincrease your tooling and reoccurring production costs. It can quickly get expensive.

If you’re not intimately familiar with those terms and associated design rules, you need to be talking to us. Attempting to regain those lost dollars never amounts to a satisfactory result. We see only half-measures in redesign, degradation in cooperation and reputation with suppliers and time wasted looking to replace suppliers in the hope of finding that holy grail. It never pans out.

Proactive Design Cost Management

To achieve lowest cost manufacturing, product definition must be balanced with a properly conceived design architecture which may include:

Major component arrangement

PC Board component placement for optimal thermal dissipation

Connectorization

Watt density management

Board level thermal issues

Thermal dissipation (Airflow, conduction, convection)

Emissions and immunity

Regulatory compliance

Product service (FRUs vs. return)

Production levels and life-cycle

Electronic enclosure materials and processes

Manufacturing methodologies and logistics

A well balanced team includes everyone at various times, including marketing and sales, service and not just the engineering and manufacturing disciplines. Some projects warrant customer/end user focus group studies.

We have been involved with developing and manufacturing custom electronic enclosures for so long that the aforementioned bullet points are a way of life for us. Also having our roots in the trenches of manufacturing, NETBased is in a unique position to get you to market quickly while understanding the holologation process and how to drive your tooling and reoccurring costs to a minimum.